Contact Client Service

Lot essay

Only one other bowl of this shape and size is known, previously sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong, 17 May 1988, lot 71.

Chrysanthemum dishes are well-known, with a complete set of twelve in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Kangxi Yongzheng Qianlong, Hong Kong, 1989, p. 316, no. 145. In Wenwu, 1984, Feng Xianming mentions the decree issued in the eleventh year of Yongzheng, instructing for forty sets of chrysanthemum dishes to be made. There is, however, no mention of any bowls. Chrysanthemum dishes in the pale celadon glaze is, unusually, not among the twelve colours from this set. Cf. the Yongzheng-marked celadon-glazed chrysanthemum dish sold in these Rooms, 28 October 2002, lot 711.

This rare and attractive form originates in the Song dynasty and is found in lacquer and metalwares and qingbai ceramics.